Colonel Whitfield Gets New Curtains

Another post on historic redecoration projects at Whitfield Hall in Jamaica. (For the hostel website, see www.whitfieldhall.com.)

Lynette Harriott let us know that the Colonel Whitfield Room needed an extra set of curtains. The room has been hosting guests regularly, and the existing curtains (blue and white Duralee toile) get dirty or smudged.

Tuileries fabric

This means Lynette must wash the curtains at least once a month. In the mountains, without electric dryers, and with so much rain and humidity, it can take days for curtains to dry — leaving the windows curtain-less!

We found a fabric, “Tuileries,” at the online store www.fabric.com. It is also a toile, like the Duralee toile already used in the Colonel Whitfield Room, but this one features stylized peacocks. Laura sewed a new set of curtains just in time for Zickie’s trip to Jamaica in October 2009.

New curtains

Future guests in the Colonel Whitfield Room may see the result. Pictured here at the curtains before their airplane trip to Jamaica.

Zickie gave these to Lynette, along with a new duvet cover, an additional set of sheets, and a new blanket, all for the Colonel Whitfield Room.

It’s fun keeping this redecorated guest room updated and looking good.

 

Toile, Toile, Toile

This post and blog describe “historic redecoration” projects at Whitfield Hall, a coffee farm and hostel in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. For Whitfield Hall’s main website, visit www.whitfieldhall.com.

In the process of replacing worn-out curtains at Whitfield Hall,  Zickie and Laura  began to research the era when the house was built (circa 1776). This meant researching Georgian style (the period dating from 1720 to 1840, when four Georges were on the British throne) and colonial furnishings in the New World. Their aim was to work with the bones and architecture of this wonderful old historic structure.  Colonial Williamsburg’s interiors were a helpful resource, although North American. One of the main sources for the material culture of the colonial West Indies was Michael Connor’s beautifully illustrated book, Caribbean Elegance.

Caribbean Elegance by Michael Connors

Laura began to investigate textiles and patterns that might be appropriate for a late 18th century house like Whitfield Hall. The idea is not to make Whitfield feel or look like a museum, but rather, to highlight or bring out the historic character of the building.

One fabric featured in a Jamaican Great House bedroom in Caribbean Elegance was toile.

Ever-popular toile was developed in France in the late 1700s. It is conceivable that in the first decades of the 1800s, a toile fabric might have been used in an English colonial house. What is certain is that toile has been used since the 1800s to conjure up a certain historic atmosphere and charm in houses in many countries. The toile Laura chose for one of the bedrooms is made by the company Duralee and is called Fantasy Toile.

Duralee toile fabric

This toile is light-hearted and fun, with little tigers and elephants woven into the pattern, cavorting as if in a dream. In other words it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

This same fabric in blue and off-white was used in the Colonel Whitfield Room. Laura sewed the curtains and then Zickie installed curtain rods in the 8 bunkbed room on a visit to Jamaica. The curtain rods were thin and brass-colored. (Unfortunately, they were a bit TOO thin, and have since become bent.)

We’ve bought new, sturdier curtain rods which if all goes well Zickie will install on his visit in October 2009. One of the interesting things about this ongoing “historic redecoration” work is learning what works at Whitfield, not only in terms of aesthetics, but also in terms of durability and suitability for the function and the mountain climate.

Red toile curtains

 

Don’t Set the Curtains on Fire

Lynette Harriott, who manages and takes care of the house at Whitfield Hall, liked the new bedroom curtains so much that Laura wanted to make her some curtains for the kitchen. She mailed a fabric sample (“Christina”) and little drawing to John Allgrove to show to Lynette. Lynette’s concern was that curtains in that kitchen would catch on fire.

Valence

This is a good example of the limitations of decorating from a distance. Based on Lynette’s advice about the danger of fire, Laura revised the plan and made valences for the 2 kitchen windows and later a matching valence for the window in the storage room next door.

Kitchen Valence

Now there is little danger of setting the curtains on fire! We hope to get a photo of the valences in the kitchen on our next visit to Jamaica. Also in the kitchen we hung a print from the Kew Royal Botanic Garden.

Kew Botanic Print

Lynette chose a spot for it so it wouldn’t get bumped off the wall. A few minor things to highlight the historic origins of the house, and to brighten the kitchen.

 

The Color Butter

One of the five bedrooms in the main house at Whitfield Hall has a fireplace. It also has 2 bunkbeds (4 beds) and one twin bed. Laura sewed new curtains for all the bedrooms and Zickie hung them on new curtain rods in November 2007. Next task, get  the remaining 4 bedrooms painted, too, to go with the fabrics, as part of their historic redecoration project. A bit of a logistical challenge when the closest paint store is an hour and a half’s drive. As they say in that great Tom Selleck vehicle, High Road to China, “The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient.”

Bedroom before new paint

Flash forward to July 2008: Laura, Chippe, and Loxly are up to their elbows in oil paint rushing to get the room done in one morning. (Thanks Chippe & Loxly!) The paint color is a pale “butter” and the trim, once Spanish brown, is now white. The black and white photographs over the fireplace are of Maureen and Faye Lumsden’s mother and her family.

Bedroom with delicious butter paint

It should also be noted, with gratitude, that Laura’s sister Leigh donated the yellow Chinoiserie fabric (which became the curtains) for use at Whitfield Hall.

This worked out really well because Chinoiserie became a rage among the English — and English colonists like Colonel Whitfield — in the Georgian era. The curtains and color seem to work with the Caribbean Georgian bones of the house, without being overly literal.

 

The cedar table

Next to the fireplace in the main hall there’s a table which has seen hundreds of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, as well as many cups of coffee. It originally belonged to Maureen and Faye Lumsden’s parents. Mr. and Mrs. Lumsden had the cedar top covered in formica, so it could withstand the activity of 4 busy children. In the picture here you can see the formica top:

Formica-topped table

Practical as it was, the formica looked a bit out of place when the table was transferred to an 18th century country home in the mountains. Faye Lumsden and her niece, Deanne Allgrove, identified it as one of the things that could stand to be changed.

In the summer of 2008, Zickie spent two hours with a trowel and a lot of elbow grease, forcing that formica up in pieces. Whoever did the original job gluing it down had not cut any corners, that’s for certain. Then Roydel Sutherland, farm manager, sanded it and varnished it, after Zickie had returned to the States. John Allgrove later sanded it and finished it once more. You can see the project, now completed, in the photo here:

John Allgrove at the cedar table

Doesn’t it look handsome?

 

From the 1770’s to the blogosphere

Thanks for visiting the blog.

Here you can get a peek at Whitfield Hall, a coffee farm in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. Whitfield Hall was first established in 1776, and some things haven’t changed…no electricity, for example. But guests who spend the night find that it’s all part of the charm.

If you’re interested in visiting Whitfield Hall in person, check out the blog, and feel free to visit our website, www.whitfieldhall.com. Cheers!

 

Whitfield Hall, est. 1776

 

Whitfield Hall

Welcome to the blog! Whitfield Hall is a historic Jamaican Blue Mountain estate. It’s a working coffee farm that grows certified Blue Mountain coffee, exported internationally under the name RSW Estates. It also offers lodging to hikers, nature lovers, birders, and travelers looking for a peaceful spot directly on the trail to Blue Mountain Peak.

Even if you’re not up for a mountain hike, this is a place you might enjoy. There’s no electricity, no pollution, no TV, no traffic — just clean air, mountains, and at a night, a sky full of stars.

At Whitfield